Those Misbehaving Zen Monks

Recent disclosures about the sexual misconduct of Ken McLeod at Unfettered Mind (see http://patriciaivanconnections.blogspot.ca/) and Fusho Al Rapaport of Open Mind Zen (http://sweepingzen.com/sexual-controversy-surrounds-open-mind-zen) point out how much help Buddhist teachers and their sanghas need to develop a wholesome practice in the West. While it may seem shocking to Westerners that Buddhist teachers could stray so far from Buddhist precepts and vows by exploiting students for sexual relationships, apparently this behavior is nothing new in the Japanese Zen tradition. But not all cases of this kind of unethical (and in some states illegal) behavior are the same. Some teachers – like Genpo Merzel and Eido Shimano – appear to be incorrigible after many decades of repeated abuse. There’s a good argument that they should be prevented from teaching, although there are as yet no clear mechanisms to do so. Other teachers may be helped by rehabilitation.

Since the problem seems to be so widespread, it’s useful to consider how and when teachers can be rehabilitated, how to educate sangha members, instruct Boards of Directors, and develop ongoing resources to further Buddhist teacher training and rehabilitation. We need to acknowledge that if teachers’ emotional needs and development are overlooked, they will be more likely to continue to misuse students to serve their needs. We need to stop pretending that meditation will resolve all human appetites at every level of interaction.

Regarding the history of consistent misconduct by Zen monks, as early at the 16th Century the Confucian scholar Ito Jinsai (1627-1705) remarked: “When meditating in isolated forest groves they [Zen priests] might seem to be awe-inspiring men of great character, but when they returned to society they grew confused and wild and were of less worth than ordinary citizens.” He reasoned that this was because they forgot or were disengaged from society while meditating and succumbed more readily to temptations when they re-entered. His pointed observation suggests that throughout history, people have noticed that the awesome power of Zen practice can be misused even by accomplished practitioners. Spiritual power does not automatically inform and transform emotional and social behaviors.

I reason that the priests Jinsai described gathered too much spiritual power without sufficient social and emotional integration, honest feedback, and skillful supervision. Their spiritual power, developed through meditating in monastic or isolated circumstances, was not completed under the watchful eye of a seasoned teacher who corrected their character flaws. Nor were they supervised later by a wise, fully educated and mature sangha. The description of “awe-inspiring men” applies to the magnetic or charismatic energy developed through meditation. We can imagine this “awe-inspiring” quality was palpable to onlookers just like the charisma attributed to Richard Baker, Eido Shimano, Dennis Genpo Merzel and other Zen teachers accused of misbehavior but credited with having strong spiritual energy.

Charismatic teachers accused of misconduct belong in the rather large historical category that Ito Jinsai described hundreds of years ago. Spiritual energy is attractive just like physical beauty and charm. For more on this subject, read Scott Edelstein’s Sex and the Spiritual Teacher. And not all offending teachers are the same. For example, Eido Shimano has been confronted about his predation decade after decade. Despite these confrontations, his bad behavior continued. After a New York Times article highlighted his abuses, Shimano (in an unpublished letter) denied the facts of his misconduct and recanted an earlier public apology. Shimano’s behavior seems incorrigible (at least in a human lifetime). The same appears to be true of Genpo Merzel, who has been confronted over several decades for sexual and financial exploitation. Even though Merzel apologized and promised to cease teaching as a Zen priest, he has not kept this promise. Both Shimano and Merzel seem incorrigible and should be identified as unreliable resources to prevent further harm to students.

On the other hand, Fusho Al Rapaport has acknowledged his offenses, undergone the scrutiny of his White Plum lineage peers, consulted with mature practitioners, stepped down from teaching and sought psychotherapy. I truly hope he can have an authentic rehabilitation and become useful teaching Zen again, but only time will tell if he will follow through with the necessary depth to change his patterns. If we had more thorough instructions for teachers, sanghas and their governing boards, and if we had well developed rehabilitation programs for all concerned, we might be able to offer specific treatment programs to restore health to these teachers and sanghas. Now, it seems all we can do is point out the wrongdoing, and extend sincere best wishes for the healthy resolution of their situation until or unless they appear incorrigible.

People who have suffered at the hands of misbehaving Buddhist teachers need to be heard, helped, and healed. We as Western practitioners should not take these current failings as unique to our Western culture or our personal failings. The misbehavior of Zen priests and the cover-ups by their communities are less related to our specific Western shortfalls and our current culture and more connected to the universal dark side of human power and spiritual energy. Just as useful drugs can be misused and create dependencies, the same can be said of acquired power and spiritual energy.

We need to correct our view of spiritual teachers—having spiritual power is not a sufficient criterion to lead a community; we must also demand ethical conduct and mature development in our Zen teachers. We need ways to assess and develop emotional, social and moral health in our teachers. Currently, Shogaku Zen Institute is attempting to offer this training for the benefit of developing sangha leaders—whether lay or priest. All members of the governing bodies or Board of Directors of Zen centers, groups, and communities should also be trained to understand their role in acknowledging and correcting wrongdoing. After covering up for Eido Shimano’s sexual predations for decades, the current Zen Studies Society Board has yet to offer arrangement for financial support to students who have been harmed. Instead, the Board is attempting to provide $90,000/annually to Shimano. Currently, we see the ZSS Board of Directors trying to find ways to include Shimano, to offer him teaching venues like leading the Sammon Ceremony, and proposing to convert the Guest House at Dai Bosatsu Monastery to its own separate non-profit organization so Shimano can “teach” students onsite. Apparently, the Board would like to allow Shimano access to vulnerable students on their own property while absolving ZSS of responsibility for any harm he might continue to commit. (The disclosures on Jorakuan retreat house are in the Shimano Archive: http://www.shimanoarchive.com/13index.html at present; # 609 and # 618. Clearly, the ZSS Board does not understand its responsibility to the Dharma and to the well-being of its students.

We need to acknowledge that spiritual power and charisma, like physical beauty or other forms of power, can create an unwholesome infatuation and relationship. This can occur with students who later become Board members and ignore their responsibilities to protect the sangha. Instead, they follow their own cravings to serve the charismatic teacher. Regardless of gender or sexual preference, both men and women may become infatuated with the charismatic spiritual teacher. A student may experience that s/he is being fulfilled and personally enhanced by the relationship with this powerful person.

Sometimes Dharma students will tend to misuse the teacher’s energy as an instant fix to his/her own perceived inadequacies or insecurities. Just as a drug can enhance the user’s sense of well-being and diminish anxiety, a teacher’s energy can serve that same purpose—instantly. In the same way that a person becomes addicted to a drug, a student can become addicted to a teacher’s energy. While this may be temporarily useful in establishing the teacher-student relationship and a healthy respect for authentic practice, a wholesome teacher-student relationship encourages the student, as quickly as possible, to develop his/her own awareness, spiritual power, and ability to stand on his/her own two feet. The unethical teacher misuses the student’s dependency, and is reluctant to let the student grow out of it. Instead, the teacher uses the student’s idealization as narcissistic supplies, and cultivates adoration, submission and loyalty to ensure the continued provision of this unwholesome diet. How much more damaging is this unwholesome relationship when these students acquire positions of leadership? The manipulative teacher tends to then surround him/herself with a protective layer of enchanted student leadership. Furthering this dynamic, students are dependent on their teacher’s approval to gain empowerments in Buddhist practice.

We need to develop strong, discerning and principled sangha members to govern Zen organizations. Education for all concerned – sangha members, board members, teachers – is an essential preventive. We now know that it is not just offending teachers that generate harm, but also the very people who have fallen under the teachers’ sway. They are the ones who build protective organizational structures around the teachers, guarding and facilitating the teachers’ influence in the name of protecting the Buddhadharma.

The tendency to idealize and become addicted to (unwholesome) spiritual teachers is widely shared. Every human being has suffered emotional loss, and every one of us comes to Buddhism (to some extent) for healing. We would be wise to put warning labels on Zen teachers and Zen sanghas and keep them well posted as a way of pointing out tendencies that may need correction. Education can help students identify unwholesome behaviors and encourage them to make concerns public. There have been cases in which a few students have spotted misconduct and unwholesome behavior but left without “spilling the beans,” making these concerns known.

Through education we can encourage witnesses and survivors to come forward. We also need to provide venues—such as Sweeping Zen– for reporting misbehavior and abuse, and to provide consulting services to answer the many questions such situations arouse. We need to create and offer training to prospective Board members who need to protect the sangha first and foremost. We need to create peer support for Buddhist teachers, who otherwise may need too much emotional nurturing from their students. We need to offer emotional and ethical training to potential teachers. There are several teaching principles built into Zen Buddhist practice (ie loyalty to teacher and sangha) that may be mistakenly applied to inhibit a sangha whistle-blower, and we need to educate Zen sanghas to the deeper meanings of the Buddha’s teaching in order to protect the community.

In Buddhism we teach people about right speech. Right speech does not mean we do not report ethical breaches. It means that when we report, investigate or publicize such problems, we do so with sincere intent to protect the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. We do not talk about these breaches to gossip or to build up our ego. In Buddhism we also teach loyalty to the teacher. This loyalty cannot exist above the principles of compassion and honesty. If a teacher may be harming a sangha member, we need to ask the community to examine the problem. We need to understand that this will be a painful process, and the process may bring up previous family trauma and loss in ourselves and others. The community may not appreciate our efforts and may not even survive the ensuing scandal. Nevertheless, not harming others is a vow we all must strive to uphold in every situation. We all have responsibility to stop harm. Finally, we vow to honor the sangha, and at times of conflict, we may wonder if we might be doing the sangha harm by raising conflictual issues. At such times, it would be wise to seek counsel from another experienced teacher or senior practice leader outside of our own community. Sadly, many Zen teachers and practice leaders are now experienced in teacher misconduct and the resulting sangha dynamics of confusion and cover-up. We need to establish more widely known Buddhist resources to counsel those who are witnessing or experiencing (potential) misconduct.

It is also important to teach Buddhist practitioners the facts about our tradition since it appears that we have unrealistic expectations of Buddhism. Many Western hippies first met Buddhism in the 60’s when their values—spiritual awakening, communal living, functioning off the grid, and rejecting mainstream conformity—seemed to be well matched and naturally embodied by the newly arrived Zen teachers and their teachings . The 60’s social values seemed to affirm Zen Buddhism as a perfect religion. Zen appeared to be untainted by corruption, materialism and conventionality, a virtue that 60’s seekers could not find so easily in their own Western religions. A religion based on meditation, moderation and accepting responsibility for one’s own suffering seemed entirely promising, but sadly, people are people, and people in power are not perfect. Power corrupts and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.

Buddhism has a long history of authentic practice and a long history of corruption, child sexual abuse in monasteries, war-mongering, and personal financial gain through accumulation of sangha resources . Along with all the Buddhist saints, you can read about these behaviors in Japanese history (Zen at War by Brian Victoria, and Lust for Enlightenment by John Stevens). Through information, study and honest self-examination we may come out of our clouds and dreams about Zen practice, we may be more able to actually define, identify and establish a more wholesome and nourishing Western Zen. For now, we must follow the Dalai Lama’s instructions to first inform the misbehaving teacher of his/her wrongdoing and then publicize the centers and teachers that condone a teacher’s misconduct. For future prevention, we must develop clear ethics standards, training resources, peer support and community consultation services. Humans being who they are, we can count on our continued attraction to charismatic teachers and some of them misusing their position as teacher.

About Myoan Grace Schireson

Abbess Myoan Grace Schireson was given Dharma transmission in the Suzuki Roshi lineage by Sojun Mel Weitsman, Abbot of Berkeley Zen Center. She studied Rinzai Zen in Japan with Keido Fukushima Roshi, the late Abbot of Tofukuji Monastery in Kyoto, Japan who asked her to teach the koans she had studied with him during her training there. Grace is the head teacher of the Central Valley Zen Foundation and has founded and leads three Zen groups and a Zen retreat center in California. Grace is also a clinical psychologist who has specialized in women and families. She has been married for forty-five years and has two grown sons and four grandchildren.

Screw you all! We don’t need any of you teachers! We have Google and Shambala Publications now to guide us!

Dear Grace –

Thankyou for some very insightful points in your article. Unfortunately things are a bit more complex than that sometimes, and of course, we will have those who criticise and try to ‘report’ every teacher they BELIEVE are unworthy according to the 12 point checklist they have read on the internet, and their (my) own delusions. Oh well, it’s a hard nut I guess, welcome to the world, and thankyou again for your efforts.

As the Catholic Church is finding out, when you prune, more (rotten) growth can occur. How do we educate practitioners in all traditions to enjoy spiritual guidance and to not sacrifice their honesty in order to find some perfect form of belonging? Just cutting off will not do the job, or this would b a perfectly enlightened universe. I believe teachers are necessary, and if they do their job, more teachers emerge with skill and ability to guide students to deeper wisdom. The communities that surround teachers tend to seek belonging and resolution of previous family issues. It will take a great deal of education to help people deepen practice AND take responsibility as an adult to see that no harm is done.

The quote regarding AL Rapaport not teaching would be comforting if it was true.

Having been his assistant teacher during first public affair, he has not changed a bit.
If you had any idea what was really going on you would be disgusted. And most certainly written a different reference regarding Al. For healing to take place a fundamental change of heart must happen. When you don’t believe you have done anything wrong the admissions are simply an effort to save whatever he can in the zen community.

I believe in healing those flawed teachers but not at the expense of additional victims.

Until the zen community does something the pain of the victims belongs to us all.

One question I would have for Ms. Schireson is, what actually is the point of Zen clergy in this country, especially the status conferred by wearing robes? And, I’ve always been taught the impossibility of maintaining the precepts, that they are questions to hold as we walk through life rather than rules to abide by in a strict way, which is why taking the vow to do is so radical and relentlessly humbling, and not a tool to use and judge others who don’t meet our fixed moral standards, whatever color of robe they are wearing. I’m not excusing the behavior of predators like Shimano, but is this all really about “misbehaving monks” or, rather, a system that lifts up the concept of purity so high (especially for those in robes) and tries to stamp out its shadow so hard, that it inevitably comes streaming forward in ways that are shocking and harmful to the naive and uninitiated? And we then feel “betrayed”? The issue of monks in this country not having enough social contact or proper oversight as a reason for their failing morally seems irrelevant and untrue, given the modern, western environment in which so-called American zen monks are born and required to train. What if the roshis and students alike showed up in jeans and t-shirts? What if we removed the specialness conferred by robes and titles?

I think that the question is interesting, but I have noticed that lay teachers get into just as much trouble as the ordained. I believe that forms of practice are up to the individual to choose, and if I thought not wearing robes would help, I would suggest that. What helps is education. Whether wearing a gold lame jumpsuit or a Buddhist robe, people are either sincere or not. I notice that Jim Jones and others did not need institutional backing to create an unwholesome following. I see the problems occurring through spiritual charisma.

“Water drunk by the snake becomes venom, water drunk by the cow becomes milk”

When you say Lay Teachers, do you mean Lay Zen Teachers? If so, could you provide some examples? One thing that might help is a more horizontal teaching style instead of the top-down model of “teacher-student” that we have today.

Thank you! So, given that Zen, by nature, is a fairly morally accommodating tradition (that is, there are precepts but they are not commandments), and given that teachers of Zen in this country are fully human and usually lay practioners (i.e., have sex and are allowed to drink and have lay lives), where does the line get drawn insofar as moral behavior goes? Who decides that, in what culture, according to what values? Why are sexual indiscretions deemed so much more damaging than, say, an outburst of anger or going on a bender (which, we both know, a lot of zen masters have been known to do)? Why do we give more attention to this particular issue (i.e., sex with students or those outside of one’s marriage)? And, moving forward, how can Zen teachers, who we know in this country (and throughout space and time) are fully human and prone to failings, work with shadow in a way that is human, helpful and not harmful? It seems robes and titles add more weight to the probability of a student projecting and creating or finding problems. But, you’re right, the robe/title isn’t the sole cause of such projection. Yet, genuinely wondering, how can we support teachers to genuinely and unselfconsciously offer their lives to sharing the dharma, and allow them to be human at the same time? It seems one of the beauties of zen is its out-of-the-box nature, allowing for any thing to happen. Yet, from my seat, at least, creating strict ethical guidelines feels somewhat antithetical to that, in my own opinion and experience. Zen needs to be a bit dangerous at a certain point to be effectual. Thank you very much for your time.

Dear Genshin,
I would say that Zen allows you to be situationally, not rigidly moral. So a Zen person takes on responsibility for not doing harm to others even if s/he may break some rules. I agree that the liveliness of Zen matters. If we are in healthy relationship to others, we will take note of the effects of our actions. It is my responsibility to notice where my fun stops and your hurt begins. An occasional party with sake or otherwise, fine. Alcoholism, not OK. Appropriate pleasure in sexuality, fine. Lust or ego driven sexual predation (particularly with one’s own students), not OK. Clarity and pointed feedback, fine. Psychological bullying or abuse, not OK.
The point is that Zen teachers need to be accountable to an educated, not a submissive, community.
The truly dangerous part of Zen is when we see ourselves as we are and stop kidding ourselves. Pretty scary and very alive.

There is a difference between what is human and what is harmful.
There are benign monks in robes and benign lay monks. Both are human and prone to error.
It is not the robes or errors that, in themselves, are dangerous to students. It is the carelessness with which they are worn.

What makes a monk dangerous (with or without robes on) is not his humanity, but his lack of it.

Hi Patricia,
Thank you. But, isn’t just being alive/human something that inevitably creates harm? And isn’t our practice to develop awareness and sensitivity to that, rather than assume we can cause less by virtue of our special practice?
I’m not naive with regard to the clergy question. My ex-partner was Head Monk at a well known and highly regarded Soto Zen center for several years, where I practiced myself for a decade and received jukai twice. Once she shaved her head and donned the robes, she was suddenly/instantly elevated, for no reason other than her appearance and how well she could do the forms. She knew and had realized nothing more by virtue of this act or her natural skills at lighting incense and doing prostrations. As a beautiful priest, she became the object of deep projection from many who encountered her there, because she really did look good in robes!, …which was a hard thing for her to bear not knowing enough about Zen or psychology to know how to work with that skillfully without become ultimately disillusioned…which she did.
And, yet, as a priest in residence, was her life there about cultivating practice through zazen and becoming educated by esteemed teachers in Buddhism and Zen? Not much. She worked 16 hours a day to run a retreat center at slave wages, and barely had the time to eat a relaxing meal. She rarely met with her teacher around actual practice matters, and she had almost no guidance around her own spiritual practice. In fact, she was instructed to guide others spiritually before she felt ready. I am not exaggerating.
I can’t speak for all or even most, obviously, but it does seem curious why such importance is given to priests and robes in this lineage, when there is no ethical, educational, or even pastoral requirement connected to it, and certainly one can wake up, realize their true nature, and embody the ancestors without them (possibly a lot more easily). What function do they really serve? Who do they serve? I don’t think there’s a simple answer, but given the growing numbers of narcissists and /or highly deluded beings who are being given the stick, gold robes, and the power to share the teachings as bodhisattvas, but whose work causes more harm and shame to Zen than benefit by virtue of their elevated position but poor judgment in personal matters, it seems healthy to question in this place and time how we are going about this. I’m not interested in “religion”, and that’s what Zen is starting to feel like in this culture at this time: corrupt and institutional, with token gestures to look at the harm being caused, but no willingness to look deeply into how we are creating an unhealthy culture for awakening and truly serving others, as doing so is too threatening to those with power and careers in the current system. Goodness, that’s certainly a very big opinion, but I will own it is mine.

I’ve studied Buddhism since the mid-1970s, training mainly in the Tibetan and Theravada traditions. From 1993 to 2007 I attended many retreats led by Ken McLeod, and in 2006-2009 participated in the Unfettered Mind teacher development program.

I’m not naive or cynical, neither apologist nor disgruntled student. I’m a long-time participant of several Buddhist communities who is concerned about the current conflict in which Ken is accused of boundary violations. No matter what the facts turn out to be, Unfettered Mind should agree to engage in mediation with the support of an organization qualified to deal with boundary issues and conflicts between spiritual teachers and students, such as An Olive Branch or FaithTrust Institute. This should be undertaken not as legal defense or to protect reputation, but as ethical action to prevent harm in the community.

For some time I’ve urged Ken and the Unfettered Mind board of directors to take this course. I’m now making a public statement because Unfettered Mind’s silence and the growing Internet rumors are both fueling further confusion without resolving conflict or preventing harm. I don’t advocate sweeping anything under the rug, but surely a mutual exploration with compassion for and by all concerned will be more effective than a scandal that feeds innuendo, rumor and confusion.

I’m grateful for Ken’s translations and teachings, which have been of genuine benefit to many people. At the core of those teachings is the capacity and willingness to meet and work directly with whatever arises. When imbalances arise in relationships, they need to be acknowledged and brought back into balance. Ken and the board of Unfettered Mind should make a public statement, sincerely engage in mediation to resolve conflict and restore trust, and do whatever is necessary to prevent further confusion and harm.

We each have an inherent, indestructible ability to know what is arising and to respond in ways that bring balance and peace. Whether we engage that ability makes all the difference.

Thank you George,
I am in full agreement with your statement that we have an ability to turn toward what is arising. I applaud your encouraging Ken and the Unfettered Mind Board to do so. No human can avoid making mistakes, but our willingness to look at the effects of our behavior is a necessity. One expects a Buddhist teacher to practice what s/he teaches.

Thank you all for sharing your experience of feeling disempowered at certain Zen centers and ways that you have coped with this unfortunate situation. There is no substitute for awareness, open communication and for education. The current transplanting of Zen in the West is currently like the Wild, Wild West. We can all help each other by talking about what worked, what didn’t, and what we did about it. Let us hope that these discussions and peer networks will help people find their way to practice and make use of Zen in a wholesome way.

Thank you for your statement. I think you have clearly separated the issue of an appropriate grievance procedure from other issues of fact and opinion. I find that separation and your support for a procedure which does not defend reputation, but tries instead to reduce harm and confusion, clarifying and obviously good-hearted.

I am struck, though, by your use of the term “Internet rumors.” If one searches that term on the net, it is mostly used to describe situations in which there is a fraudulent document or a misattributed quote posted online, in the hope that people will believe something that the poster knows is not true. If this is what you mean, I think it would be helpful to indicate where you see that happening. Otherwise, to me, it comes off as an “innuendo” in its own right.

You state that “Unfettered Mind’s silence and the growing Internet rumors are both fueling further confusion…” Perhaps. But it’s worth noting that the UM Board has been silent for over a year and half, while this Internet controversy elicited your eloquent, clarifying public statement in just a few weeks.

Dear John,
Thanks for bringing up the wording. I hope George responds to you directly here, and he also has a blog where you may respond to him http://naturalawareness.blogspot.ca/2012/08/an-open-letter-to-unfettered-mind-and.html. I appreciated George’s response to my blog, and I hope that the use of his term “internet rumor” refers to what has been said, but has not yet been substantiated or addressed. I have been deeply disturbed by Patricia Ivan’s grievance http://patriciaivanconnections.blogspot.ca/, particularly, if there has been a loss of family relationships (husband and children) connected to her (potentially naive) romantic relationship with Ken McLeod. I try to use my Zen teaching to help my students enter their relationships and work life with more compassion and awareness and to support their lives as their deepest practice opportunity. A disturbance in a student’s life, caused by a Buddhist teacher, is a grave responsibility for the teacher and the community.

I do hope the Unfettered Mind Board will open their hearts and their process to examine these “rumors.” Something happened, and it is not yet clear how the reported harm occurred. But there is a need for a transparent process. Whatever mistakes may have been made offer yet another opportunity for Buddhist teachings on taking responsibility and being human. Surely, as painful as it may become, Buddhist teachers have a responsibility to live their lives for the benefit of unfolding the Buddhadharma for the *sake of their students*. Teacher failings, mistakes and missteps are alive teachings when they unfold with compassion, forgiveness and a sincere effort to deepen commitment to spiritual practice. None of us can forget that we are all human beings together on this path.

I’d like to see an exploration of the notion of “spiritual power” that Grace refers to in her original article – something perhaps developed in retreats, hard monastic practice, and so forth. The presumption seems to be that it is a “state of being” that, once achieved, is permanent. And that the job of a sangha and its leadership is to “guide” the awakened being along a path of non-harmful behavior – all the time benefiting from his or her great wisdom. This begs the question: if the master is so awakened, why do ordinary practitioners have the job now of guiding (and protecting themselves from) the very person who is supposed to be guiding them?

I’d suggest that, as Dogen Zenji teaches, there is only “practice-enlightenment” – a fusion. And the practice side of the equation includes not harming others (see the Eightfold Path). When this non-harming practice is absent, so also is any “enlightenment” absent. We then are talking about charisma, sociopathy , and perhaps intellectual brilliance masquerading as “spiritual power,” whatever that might be. If we saw the same behavior in a therapist, banker, professor, or politician, we would know it for what it is.
Erik F. Storlie

Hello Eric,
Let’s see if we can unpack this notion of “spiritual power.” Can an emotionally unbalanced person have spiritual wisdom or not? Do you think Dogen’s “practice enlightenment” was an absolute truth, and not subject to situations? Dogen is far enough away historically (1200-1253) that he may seem to represent an ideal. But I am not sure that this was the case–he may have had his own emotional issues of arrogance and vanity. I believe that spiritual development can co-exist with narcissism. I have read the teachings of many teachers; their words move me, inspire me, open up access to deeper experience. But their actions and relationships are disturbed and dangerous. The historical Asian social context may have contained their mistakes in a way we have not yet developed, or it may have been the same problems then.

Actually, the same personality dynamic happens in therapy and with brilliant professors; people can be helped and hurt at the same time. And with brilliant business people. They have something to teach, that is compelling, but their sociopathy can be working right alongside. I think we have seen leadership brilliance attract followings and cause harm. And it is hard to understand how a person can be capable of brilliant development in their field, and cause so much harm interpersonally. But they do.

So I will try to describe what I have experienced (as spiritual energy) and what I am pointing to. I tend to think of spiritual power traveling along a different energy system than the intellect or the emotions. I have experienced this energy, like a hit in the solar plexus, from both Suzuki Roshi and Fukushima Roshi. I then explored their teaching to see what it meant–lucky for me I was not caught in a wave of dysfunction with either teacher. Just like veins circulate blood, and acupuncture meridians circulate chi, I think spiritual power is developed and radiated. I think of it like building muscles through exercise. But it does not indicate any permanent situation to me–rather an aptitude. It is just an energy that is developed. I do not think it is equivalent to awakening but might lead there with proper development. It can be accompanied by charisma or sociopathy or not.

I believe that all humans need feedback, particularly those in power. Good students, like good advisors, will tell you when you miss the mark. Do you ever get good and helpful feedback from students you have taught? I believe people do their best work in communities with collaboration. This discussion, and your questions, have a great deal of potential to help people recognize a good training teacher and how to help that teacher develop. Everything that glitters is not gold, and as you say, charisma can be mistaken for spiritual development or even wisdom.

What I am really interested in is whether teachers who show these narcissistic tendencies, or even make serious mistakes, can be rehabilitated. They spend years in training, and may have some beneficial teaching skills. Can they receive help that will truly transform their behavior? Or do we need to write them off in some absolute way because of their mistakes of practice-enlightenment? I am interested in both prevention and remediation. I also see that transplanting this practice from Asia has itself contributed to teachers’ blindspots. Much work and much discussion needed. I am glad to hear your further thoughts

Didn’t you read the letters posted to Genpo Merzel regarding his behaviors from a number of teachers (including myself)? There were group letters and individual letters asking him to stop teaching. Adam posted them on Sweeping Zen. But there was not one from Shishin or White Plum. We are still waiting for that one.

I’m still waiting for the American Zen teachers who are so vocal about sex to address the other abuses that were non sexual, as well as for Shishin Wick to actually address the very real damage done by Merzel. The silence is all but deafening.

Thank you all for the discussion.
My goal for practice is that each of us to become familiar with our own demons-our longings, our fears, our aversions–without demonizing ourselves or others. To make use of the awesome technology of Buddhism, we need to accept our own vulnerabilities and tendencies at the same time we are allowing “spiritual power” to grow and transform awareness. This does not happen automatically, but can be developed practicing with a skillful teacher in an aware community. The seeing, self-reflecting, accepting, studying, and meditating all need to be balanced. We can’t escape our human emotions.
And we need to note our tendency to idealize and aim for perfection rather than live with our own limitations.
The disappointment we experience is part of realistic practice. We want to find something that can make all of our suffering go away. Alas, suffering can be transformed, but even that is impermanent. I believe the best we can do is work with suffering skillfully and not make more! Truly, we need to rely on each other.

In light of Grace’s response to Erik, I would like to ask this: can we really call someone “enlightened” who, while perhaps a spiritual genius, is psychologically arrested or even, in some cases, a sociopath?

Grace distinguishes “spiritual power” from the psychological maturity that enables teachers to guide their students wisely and compassionately. She seems to be saying that spiritual development can be divorced from personal development, much like a well-developed skill like playing the piano can be divorced from any emotional connection to the music. If I understand her correctly, she is saying that there is no inherent relationship between spiritual wisdom and practical wisdom.

Fundamentally, then, she and Erik are saying the same thing: practical wisdom, or “practice-enlightenment”, is not something that is held in check by an external system of values upheld as moral precepts. It is an internalized sense of right action that manifests at the level of interpersonal relationships.

Where they seem to disagree is whether a person without this sense can truly be called “enlightened”. I personally do not think so and would agree with Suzuki Roshi that “there are, strictly speaking, no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.” It is a moment to moment thing, neither a power nor a state. Unlike spiritual power, it is not the fruit of spiritual practice but of spiritual actions, and cannot be divorced from personal psychology or interpersonal relationships. It manifests as compassion.

That is why, Grace, to answer your question about whether rehabilitation is possible—say, with education– I think that, in some cases, it may be. The light can go on at any time, especially if the only obstacle is ignorance; but, in most cases, there are psychological obstacles as well. In the case of narcissism and sociopathy, for example, the roots go very deep and there is not much hope of rehabilitation in this life. Even if rehabilitation were possible, insight can only occur at its own pace, as the fruit of an inner process that is largely mysterious. Although we may be able to nurture and fertilize this process, we cannot force a person to ripen (or rot). It happens (or not).

Grace, I could not agree more that what you refer to as “spiritual power” is like muscle. “Hard practice” like hard exercise, develops muscle, and, to carry the analogy further, muscle can be good and healthy; one can use muscle to do useful work, but one can also become proud of ones muscle, perhaps spend all ones time and energy developing it to impress others and attract “narcissistic supply.” One can even use it as part of a marketing campaign to bring others to our profitable gymnasium, which is a tricky issue, since gyms, after all, can help people; but they can also be narcissistic-supply multi-level-marketing scams, where some people develop more muscle and get more supply at the expense of others.

To carry the analogy even further, one can become muscle bound. The very capacity for strength is then limited by its over-development at the expense of softer qualities, notably flexibility, feeling and ordinary love. This is why anyone with open eyes will notice after a while that when one compares “serious” spiritual aspirants with those around them, often the others start to appear a little flabby here or there, but healthier overall.

Perhaps most tragic of all is that, in the end no one really enjoys deeply the muscle or much of anything else in this scenario. Flexibility and joy in “what is,” are sacrificed to the cultivation of ideals, which by definition, are things that are not. This is narcissism in a nutshell, and I speak less as an amateur psychologist than as a narcissist who has developed some slight capacity for self observation with a lot of help from others.

I think in most spiritual traditions these issues are at least mentioned, though many of us may ignore the warnings. Why? Grace, to me you are right on the money when you point out that the “great masters” probably suffered from much of this themselves. You mention Dogen, but if one studies the opinions of non-Buddhists, many of them see these qualities in Shakyamuni himself. Mention these to “good Buddhists” sometime and watch them defend in self-righteous panic, or self satisfied smugness: “Ah they do not understand. What Shakyamuni really meant was __________. [Fill in his or her ideal.] Or perhaps they will give you a knowing smile.

Hearkening back to these great masters, selectively according to the ideals we want to see in ourselves, is always a sign of at least some form of weak narcissism at work. (By the way, if you are tired of your weak narcissism, come to me—I can teach you how to develop the strong variety.)

In fact emphasizing ANY ideal at all: “not harming,” “nature,” “tathagatagarbha,” “science,” “democracy,” “an enlightened society,” “awareness,” “awakening,” “flexibility and joy in what is,” “opening to what is and moving towards balance,” “wholesomeness,” even perfect cynicism, or the ideal of living without ideals, all these can be used to defend against the terrifying vacancy that occurs when ideals collapse.

What makes matters worse is that all developed societies and traditions are founded on ideals and the idealized figures we use to disseminate them. And few (if any) of us can live without developed societies and traditions, all of which have been often brutal and unfeeling in their dealings with human beings. In the case of Buddhism, this often takes the form of teaching the powerless to concentrate on their own flabby failings and idealize the muscle bound failings of the powerful

There is, perhaps, some solace in the the compassionate awareness, that as Grace says, we are “all human” and stuck in this conundrum together. When one is muscle-bound, a little stretching and massage (sometimes pleasurable, sometimes painful) and a bit of goofing off with flabby friends is helpful.

I wish you the very best and thanks for this discussion, the ideal place for my inhuman rant.

What do you expect from someone who takes money from and in so doing legitimizes arguably one of the worst Zen cults ever to appear in America? Of course the cult I’m referring to is the Federick P Lenz Foundation a.k.a Zen Master Rama and that someone is Shishin Wick, president of the WPA.

I have been a member of two Tibetan communities where the teachers are westerners trained by Tibetans. There are similar problems in both communities, with misuse of the tantric energy practices by the teachers to fulfill their personal needs for power or companionship. Both communities have been adversely affected by the teacher’s behaviors.

For the time being, I have changed traditions and have sought female teachers.

Apparently Freud and Jung had affairs with their patients, but eventually the “therapy” profession realized that harm was being done. When the right to engage in their work became conditional on not engaging in the fulfillment of the professional’s needs, patients got the protection they needed.

Would this be a useful direction for spiritual teachers and students…some kind of licensing board where students could take their grievances? Of course, since spiritual teachers are usually paid by donations, this system would not work to control teachers from continuing to have access to students, but at least students would have a place to take their grievances and there would be some standards. If a teacher refused to participate in the grievance process, then the teacher’s name and the grievance could justifiably be made public and future students could have access to the information to decide whether they wanted to study with that teacher.

I’d like to make a few more remarks before my wife and I are away from internet connection for a week. And I thank Grace for encouraging frank conversation about these matters. My concern with all this comes from having experienced and having observed the harm done to students and communities by teachers who are internally split – ruinously split – as Patricia describes: teachers who have what Grace calls “spiritual power,” yet who are narcissistic, sociopathic, or whatever the appropriate diagnosis might be. We have no trouble with the concept of a great pianist, football player, professor, or scientist being narcissistic or sociopathic. (A psychotherapist is a special case, almost a secular priest, and he or she can have a license revoked for malpractice.) The other professions don’t claim to be resolving final questions about the meaning of life – nor representing knowledge that can give us freedom from our human suffering, or enlightenment, or heaven in an afterlife. A human being who claims such knowledge, yet uses it to inflict suffering on others in service of his own cravings, does not have anything I would describe as “spiritual” power and should not be supported as a “spiritual’ teacher.

Perhaps the word “spiritual” is neither appropriate nor accurate. I see, as Patricia does, an inherent contradiction here. We are talking about individuals who are in no way integrated, who are in no way whole – who have two parts of themselves at war with each other, or who are engaged in actively deceiving their students, or both. Part of the problem is that the English word itself has no precise meaning. But its connotations, except perhaps for a skeptic or atheist, are very positive. If a friend were eager to introduce me to someone who had great “spiritual power,” but also warned me that the adept might try to seduce my wife or daughter, I would immediately dismiss the description “spiritual” as laughable. Maybe great charisma. Maybe a great intellect. Maybe awe-inspiring speaking and acting ability. Maybe great mastery of some religious practice. But not “spiritual.” Maybe a toxic mimic of the truly spiritual.
Other questions arise for me in this discussion. Even if we grant that there is some unique energy called spiritual – as when I, like Grace, was bowled over as a young man by Suzuki Roshi’s presence – how do we decide that the harm a toxic teacher is doing and will do is outweighed by his inspiring (not inspired!) teaching? What if the harm includes extracting sums of money from the naïve, or rape, or infecting unsuspecting students with the AIDS virus? Do we make such a cost/benefit analysis – and leave the victimized behind like road kill?

We might also ask whether the accomplishment of “spiritual” austerities– such things as years of isolation, or the ability to go great lengths of time experiencing pain in the legs, or dissolving thoughts, or visualizing a particular deity, or focusing on Mu, or cultivating generalized emotions of compassion – is more than the remarkable cultivation of skills, rather like the pianist’s five-finger exercises? Such accomplishments are awe-inspiring, as are feats performed in the Olympics. But is there real heart in the music or beauty in the gymnastics? Or only a desperate grasping toward accomplishment and hope for ultimate recognition (at least, perhaps, in a next life)? In any case, if such cultivation flows out into harmful action, I believe we must reject it as a qualification to teach.

Another question. If “spiritual power” is not permanent, is not “awakening,” as Grace says, do we believe that there is an awakening, an enlightenment that is a permanent state? That Dogen suggests otherwise says to me that he, indeed, knew well his own human weaknesses – and worked with them in the practice-enlightenment that never ends. So I’m inclined to follow Suzuki Roshi in the suggestion quoted by Patricia that “there are, strictly speaking, no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.” If I am missing either the way-seeking mind that wants to wake up – or the actual practice suggested in the Eighfold Path by which I wake up, I should not be recognized as embodying any kind of “spiritual” power nor as any kind of “spiritual” teacher.
As for rehabilitation, I see that as a secondary concern – and dangerously close to protection of the abuser and of the organization that relies on him or her for authority. Our first duty is to protect the seekers. Tell them loudly and clearly who to avoid. And that all the trappings of Asian religious ceremony, hierarchy, and authority, however dazzling, represent nothing inherently “spiritual” and may simply mislead the naive. Anything less, it seems to me, is a direct violation of the precepts.

Thanks Erik and thanks Leslie,
For Leslie, I agree, there should be a licensing board and laws regarding pastoral misconduct. There already are such laws in a number of states and they would definitely cover Buddhist communities. We are like the therapeutic community, getting started to help people, and finding that there are some helpers who take advantage of their power. Like Erik, my foremost concern is that sangha members get protection. When harm has been done, I wish to talk about it in an effort to raise awareness and action.
I do not care whether one refers to the charisma as “spiritual” or not, but I am talking about charisma applied within a specific field–is it called religious, spiritual or just plain Buddhist? The word is unimportant. I do believe, as does Scott Edelstein in Sex and The Spiritual Teacher, that some energy is built through practice that is palpable. “Spiritual” is a perfectly good English word to me to describe the domain in which this energy arises. I do not see spirituality as necessarily integrated well with emotional development.
I began my blog with a quote from a 16th Century Confucian scholar, Ito Jinsai, who noted that there could be something impressive about monks practicing in isolation, but their conduct could be worse than other citizens (who did not claim to practice) when they returned to society. The misuse of either Zen (or Buddhist) credentials or charisma is an ongoing problem with deep roots.
The sexual predation is more common among male teachers, but there have been at least two female Zen teachers, and other female Buddhists who have taken sexual advantage of their students.
Let’s pay attention. How do take the term “Buddhist, Zen or spiritual” to mean someone who can do no harm? How do we wish to advance our own agenda by becoming the teacher’s favorite? How do we mistake the longing for union, wisdom or development with sexuality?
For the most part, teachers can’t do this without our participation and desire. In rare cases there have been rapes, and they should have been reported as such. We need to take care of each other by reporting misconduct and examining our own motivation and holding the teacher accountable, even if the laws are not yet written.

I have no real argument with your concept, but do note that, in the US anyway, people can practice medicine and law for a long time dangerously and unscrupulously before a licensing board takes note, much less action against them. Also, such boards can be and are used to persecute the innovative and challenging members of those professions, while protecting the powerful and well connected. The difficult issue of religious freedom from government regulation is also important to keep in mind (especially under the US Constitution) and the question, “who will guard the guards?” is always a problem. Still, it’s a good idea and might help.

Some of us have thanked Grace, but probably not enough. I don`t happen to agree with her (or anyone here) on everything, but her blog and comments section is all the more beautiful for that. I would like to add thanks to Adam Tebbe and the Sweeping Zen editors for honoring the principle of free and open exchange of information and opinion here. There is much talk everywhere about bringing the profound Eastern meditative traditions into the modern Western cultural milieu. No part of that milieu is more important (to me anyway) than this principle of free and open exchange.

In the West at its best, people name names, report facts and offer their experience and opinions. Anyone is free to dispute what they read and hear. No one needs a license or a licensing board to speak up and no one has to believe anything they hear. This freedom has been sadly weakened in much of Western society but it is alive on the Internet. No doubt this results in a lot of noise and rudeness sometimes, but it also offers forums in which the less powerful can challenge the more powerful. The playing field is never level, but at least it’s a field.

You make critical mention of two Vajrayana teachers, but you do not mention their names. Is it rude to ask, why not? Why do so may Buddhists only mention names when they are being positive, admiring and supportive, but not when they are being critical? I have done this myself. Is it compassionate or passive aggressive? As Kobutsu Malone points out, compassion doesn’t mean talking like Mr. Rogers all the time, and many Buddhist teachers make similar statements.

One of those teachers is Ken McLeod. In his case, he makes his living writing and teaching others how to be more aware human beings in all aspects of their lives. Is it not important for anyone, not just a licensing board or those who might enter into a personal relationship with him, but anyone, to publish facts, experiences and opinions that might call the totality of his expertise in this regard into question? I have greatly benefited from Ken’s teachings myself, but they are hardly unquestionable. Sometimes he is obviously limited in his thinking and comprehension, even in his facts. The experiences various people have with him are directly related to the ways we should question what he says.

Teachings which only work in carefully constructed hothouse environments are not really of much use. If teachers can only function in protected environments surrounded by adoring students and respectful colleagues, this should be of great interest to those who live in the chaotic world of ordinary human interaction.

I think most would agree that humility is an important aspect of the spiritual life. I don’t really care whether people wear robes or not, but in the modern world nothing requires more humility than to leave behind the protections of our presumed ranks, stations and credentials and simply talk as equals to anybody we have a problem with and anybody who has a problem with us. If we can’t, won’t or don’t, it is not aggression but compassion to talk to us, and about us, openly in public forums.

To speak in language drawn from the Mahakala teachings, language that Ken, his students and authorized teachers should understand, when we have tried with good heart to pacify, enrich and magnetize in a relationship, there is only one phase left.

I have noticed on this blog that there is a tendency to ridicule statements about “spiritual power” as yoda or Star Wars, or to try to conflate the term with some permanent enlightenment. I think you can disagree with the concept, without ridiculing or conflating I also notice that three women, Patricia, Leslie (you are a woman?) and myself have experienced this kind of energy–yogic, tantric, spiritual or??? Men–Erik and Stephen–have dismissed it. I think it would be serve our educational purpose to ask about what “spiritual energy” feels like to women and men who have experienced it, rather than dismissing or conflating it with enlightenment. Because it is women who seem to be swayed by “spiritual power” and have chosen sexual relationships to share this energy with their teachers, I think we should all listen up to the descriptions and be informed as we try to discuss and prevent this harm. Let us help educate women and men to examine their feelings, and let us not dismiss these feelings by ridiculing or conflating them.

I completely support healing the sangha first, and have stated that in every discussion. Rehabilitation is part of the healing for the whole community; rehabilitation and healing the community are not mutually exclusive. When people see that they have the capacity to heal, forgive, and actually help someone else, they are strengthened. Some teachers will not face their misconduct, and therefore should not teach. But if a teacher shows humility and is willing to own up, let us see what can be done together. Let us work on education and healing with respect, honest and careful discussion.

Studies done surveying people on their fears have shown that the number one fear is public speaking. When we look more deeply, it seems the underlying issue here is the fear of being publicly humiliated.
This makes sense, because deep within ourselves, we know we are fundamentally the same and interconnected. In buddhist terms, we are fundamentally buddhas, or have buddha nature. Public humiliation is an extremely painful state because it moves us so far away from our buddha nature.

There is a natural compassion that arises when we know that we or others have acted in a way that causes harm. This compassion acts to support the arising of wisdom and wants to avoid deepening the harm. We naturally want to support each others growth.

The first community I was with had a major breakdown about a year after I left. The entire board resigned, all the teachers but the founder left and the majority of the students left with the departing teachers. I learned later that the founder of that organization received strong criticism from the general community of buddhist teachers. But did this change his behavior? Unless there is a internal transformation, which always requires deeper insight and compassion, the teacher may continue to cause harm. That is why any action taken needs to arise from deep compassion, not from any desire to increase one’s own sense of importance, or to wipe out one’s own hurt from the relationship by seeing the other person suffer.

We can use the energy of destruction(as you refer to above) to destroy our own habits of self-importance and from this may arise a greater capacity to engage in awakened action on behalf of this situation or any others that we encounter in our lives.

A great deal of patience is needed when confronting long held harmful conditioned patterns in ourselves or others. At the same time, we can persist in holding ourselves accountable for our actions and others accountable for their actions.

I am 60 years old and in one way or another have been concerned with Buddism as a primary interest since I was 17. I began the “serious” practice of meditation when I was 26. During those 43 years of Buddhist foment in North America many are the times that internal warning bells went off inside me concerning some Buddist “scene” to which I was attracted. Mostly I went off and practiced by myself, sometimes quite intensively for long periods, because I was so powerfully disturbed by what I saw and sensed. In one famous case, I took one look at a celebrated “dharma heir” and–RING–somehow knew that some people were going to get badly hurt. History proved that warning bell right.

Nevertheless, I saw my warning bells as a weakness, signs of my own “self importance.” Even when people did get hurt, even when they died, I saw my own lonely, mostly independent practice as deeply inferior to the practices of the followers who gave themselves over and jumped in fearlessly with enthusiasm and commitment. I was the “self important” one with the problem.

I did have problems and I still do, of course. I have seen both ends of harm, as receiver and perpetrator. I was celibate for 10 years and then struggled mightily with a full blown sex addiction. I have done things of which I am deeply ashamed. I think I know something about this and I am no moralist. Perhaps I flatter myself, but I think I have some sensitivity to the issues involved, including the attraction of “dharma” to those of us who wish to spiritualize our attachment problems and hide, even from ourselves, our need for compensatory image and power. Sex, as usually understood, has little to do with it. I personally don’t see this as a side issue of most dharma practice, but right there at the beginning and in the middle of the tradition, quite prevalent in the “great masters” themselves in all kinds of gross and subtle forms, usually with overtones of gynophobia.

I still believe in some form of meditation and self-inquiry as indispensable to a proper human life and believe Buddhism has much to offer.

If I were to die tonight, though, what I regret most is that I listened to what I am afraid sounds a lot like what you are telling me now and let myself worry so much about my “self-importance” as a problem. I see that worry now as just another form of self-importance anyway, but what really bothers me is that it kept me from listening to my conscience and speaking up.

In the case of Ken McLeod, my warning bells went off long before I knew any of the particulars referenced in the blog post above, or any of the parties involved. I am not saying this case is exactly like all the others, but I do know a great deal about it now, and, at my age, I am not easily shamed into silence.

When you practice with a sexual partner, empty bliss awareness arises.
The balancing of method and wisdom transforms energy.
Let it descend gently, collect it, draw it back up,
Return it to its place, and let it saturate your body.
When you are free from longing and desire, empty bliss awareness arises.

From the Ganges Mahamudra

This may help you understand your experience Patricia. This is the practice that you likely got exposed to with Ken Mcleod that weekend. It’s part of the 6 Yogas of Naropa and has traditionally been done in retreat settings with highly developed practitioners who have been sequestered from ordinary life. It is being used inappropriately in the two communities I spoke of. It’s probably the practice that attracts young women to old lamas, like Sogyal Rinpoche(another sex scandal).

I am glad you are listening to your own conscience. I too have found my conscience helped me to leave unhealthy buddhist communities.

My awareness of the operation of self-importance in me(lots of Tibetan teachers call it ego cleaning) becomes finer and finer the more I practice.

Some of us may be more shame sensitive(not wanting to be exposed in a negative light), and others more concerned about wanting to be seen as special(‘in the limelight”). They are two sides of the same coin. I happen to be more shame sensitive. My desire to be special is more closeted, but it is still present in me. We all have this stuff in us.

Each of us has the opportunity to gradually work this stuff out of our system in our own way. I am happy to hear that you are finding more freedom.

Thank you for your helpful questions about “spiritual power” or “spiritual energy” in your last comment. I know what you are referring to and agree that it is energy that is neither emotional nor intellectual, but can be generated by certain practices. As you have said elsewhere, the word “spiritual” may be causing some problems here. Some people may associate moral or connotations to the word and clearly it does not necessarily make one more moral. Some may see it as denoting complete freedom from craving, and clearly it doesn’t do that either. Others, influenced by a contemporary scientism that sees only what is measurable by an instrument as real, may deny its reality on that basis. In the end, those who experience and or cultivate it it know it as a phenomenon.

I am a heterosexual male but know what it is like to “fall in love” with the “spiritual power” of a teacher. Like falling in love itself, it can give one the energy to do things one didn’t know one could do. That can be good or bad, depending on what those things are. I was streetwise and frightfully paranoid and though I felt that was a problem at the time, I have come to see it as my own inner wisdom. My teacher was “no saint,” as the saying goes, but in my case he took no advantage of my opening and even encouraged me to keep practicing on my own, if that was what I thought was best. That was actually something of a shock and a disappointment, since I think I wanted to be “seduced” into some other relationship.

I can only imagine the consequences if he had thought I was worth “seducing,” or was weak enough to let me seduce him. As this was a relationship between heterosexual men, that seduction would have had something to do with organizational roles, not sex. I was lucky, and probably so was the organization!

I believe the concentration on sexuality in this discussion is understandable and appropriate, but I have seen plenty of damage done by the use of this “spiritual power” to build organizations also.

In the end the operative term here is “power” not “spiritual” and like all power it is fundamentally amoral. May everyone keep that in mind. But it is also a human quality, like creativity or intelligence, and it seems to me that it can be cultivated, like any human quality as part of a “spiritual” path that emphasizes becoming as complete a human being as possible.

As a therapist and, for want of a better term, a “spiritual seeker” whose practice includes meditation, I have been following this discussion with great interest. In my roles as therapist, supervisor of therapists (including those who have been sanctioned by a licensing board for violations of the profession’s code of ethics) and teacher of therapists and their supervisors, I have worked extensively with the sort of boundary issues described here.

Grace compares the American Buddhist community to the therapeutic community, as the latter came to recognize problems of abuse and worked to develop effective means to address them. I would ask why, after the revelations of abuse in Buddhist communities that now go back at least forty years, effective remedies are not already in place? We all know much more about such things as sexual exploitation than we did back in the 1980’s, when therapists began seriously to address the issue. Freud had promoted the notion that recollection of sexual abuse was an unconscious fantasy on the part of the patient rather than a reality. No one would say that today. There are now laws regarding sexual harassment in the workplace—laws that have gained national prominence, for example the case of Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill. As the participants in this discussion have noted, therapists now have licenses that can be revoked if they exploit their clients sexually or in some other serious manner. And teachers are fired for such treatment of students. Finally scandals in religious communities, in particular the Catholic Church, are regularly exposed by the media and most people—both Catholic and non-Catholic—are appalled at the reluctance of the Church to hold the abusers to real account. In light of this large cultural context, there is little excuse for the Buddhist community to act as if they need to begin to invent the wheel, starting at the same place as those who came before them.

Given the serious consequences of sexual exploitation, it is notable that Grace refers to the “misbehavior” of zen teachers. Such an expression minimizes the effect, implying that the behavior is “naughty,” like that of a child who disobeys the rules, rather than egregious. Marilyn Peterson’s 1992 book “At Personal Risk: Boundary Violations in Professional-Client Relationships” describes the nature of boundary violations in all of the helping professions: law, education, clergy, medicine, teaching and therapy. She proposes that these professionals are modern day shamans, each performing a portion of the tasks of the traditional tribal shaman—healer, advisor, teacher, spiritual guide. As such, they are qualitatively different than some of the comparisons made in previous discussions here—for example artists, musicians or athletes. In relationships with all of these professionals the client, parishioner, student or patient has to actually hand over some power—has to in some way put her (or his) heart in the hands of the professional. This is not to say that she has no choice and must do or believe everything the professional suggests or even tells her she must, but that without allowing herself to be vulnerable to the impact of the professional, she will not benefit from the relationship. If she doesn’t believe the professional has anything of value to teach her or that he or she can do something or help her do something she can’t already do for herself, the relationship has no purpose. The relationship, therefore, is a fiduciary one, in which the professional must be committed to holding the best interests of the client/parishioner/student/patient as absolutely primary. If the professional compromises the client’s best interests in favor of his or her own, the client will be injured, perhaps physically, perhaps in some other tangible way— for example monetarily—and most certainly psychologically.

In the case of clergy and therapists, as Erik notes, the job involves helping people resolve “final questions about the meaning of life” or sharing knowledge that can give them “freedom from [their] human suffering, or enlightenment, or heaven in an afterlife.” An additional distinction between these two professions and the others is that the relationship itself between client and professional is vital in the healing and growth process. Because of these facts, the client or parishioner is particularly vulnerable to the effects of sexual or psychological exploitation.

As a therapist offering help to a victim, I would indeed explore the kinds of questions that Grace raises regarding how the victim ended up in the situation in which she found herself. Often, the victim learns that she was replaying an earlier victimization, perhaps abuse she experienced as a child or, as Grace suggests, that she was trying to fulfill some deep longing deriving from profound early deprivation of emotional or spiritual support, validation and guidance. This exploration is essential. The victim must come to understand what drew her to such a person, what compelled her to stay in the relationship—and maybe even to invite or encourage it. This is a crucial step towards developing compassion for herself, healing her wounds and gaining the power to protect and take care of herself in the future. Depending on the circumstances—that is, whether doing so would help or further harm her—I would also encourage her to take steps to hold the violator accountable.

I am alarmed, however, by Grace’s suggestion that victims of Buddhist clergy sexual and psychological abuse somehow share responsibility for the clergy person’s behavior. This responsibility belongs entirely to the clergy person. Also completely unacceptable in any professional process of redress of such wrongs is the suggestion that the victim might even have an obligation as a community member to contribute to the clergy person’s “rehabilitation.” Following these suggestions would be, in fact, a continuation of the abuse itself.

Tamara Kaiser PhD, LICSW, LMFT; Professor Emerita, University of St. Thomas; Author of Supervisory Relationships: Exploring the Human Element; and A User’s Guide to Therapy: What to Expect and How You Can Benefit; http://www.tamarakaiser.com/

Buddhism is distinct among spiritual traditions for its flexibility over time and approach to change. Since we practice an essentially introspective philosophy, our relationship with our masters is curious in that the way cannot be taught so much as illustrated. So when we talk about teachers, what we are really saying is recognizing the buddha nature in ourselves.

I see that there is a deep problem in the scenario described, of the infatuation with charisma and the ease with which a spiritual relationship can become sexual. And though I support all efforts to encourage fidelity with the precepts, I do not see the problem going away. In fact, I think it plagues all religious traditions to one degree or another, as well as secular life. So if this is a problem that exists both within and without the zendo, where does it really exist? The answer should be clear to any buddhist.

I think that it may be time for buddhism to look beyond the original concept of the sangha. We live in a world that now, due to the internet and mass communications, people can interact continuously and instantaneously via great distances. Instruction on meditation techniques and so on do not require physical presence anymore. And while it is satisfying and wholesome to spend time with those who share our beliefs, it appears to me the “sangha” is another form of delusion whereby we separate ourselves from the rest of universe. Humanity is our sangha, really, or it should be. Humanity is the gem, the people we meditate with are just one facet of that gem. Every person we meet is our spiritual teacher. When we see their failures, through compassion and humility, we see our own. Do we still need the traditional forms?

Can we find a middle path where technology works to our advantage while removing some of the immediate temptation of sexual desire? Just look at the karma of the Internet: 90% pornography. I hope Buddhism can occupy some of that formless space for more fruitful activity, without the age old problems of close proximity.

Adam is a gem, and has really created something. I hope that you will make donations to Sweeping Zen. Online practice places are developing, and my guess is there will be different problems there.

Steven, I do not take the remarks (too) personally. But I did want to have as productive a conversation as possible–hence my request to listen up and not ridicule. I appreciate your remarks, and I agree that there is something wrong–hence my post. But I have not found anything to replace Zen meditation and teaching that helps me as much. So I am looking for answers, and trying to figure out what we need to do to have a healthy practice.

For Tamara, Zen sanghas are precious to practitioners. When abuse has occurred, often the “victims” are pushed out. This is a terrible loss to lose your community when someone else is at fault. I believe that if there can be a rehabilitation process that truly works through the harmful patterns in the community, a harmed practitioner could benefit from participating. I have noticed that some women wish to be called survivors, and not be called victims. I suggested that women learn about how they fell under the spell of an abuser because there isn’t only one abuser out there. We need to know what it feels like and how we can avoid it in the future.

I am very aware that a person’s community—spiritual or otherwise—is often precious to him or her. And, of course, I quite agree with you that it’s unacceptable—and frequently devastating—for someone who has been harmed by a community leader to have to lose the community itself. If the community can address the issue in a manner that supports the person who has been harmed, then it is certainly appropriate.

Perhaps my point would have been clearer had I stated that I am familiar—and very impressed with—the powerful process of restorative justice, wherein the victim is able to share with the offender the depth of the impact of his violation and the offender is able to fully understand it and genuinely make amends to the victim and, when relevant, the community. This is both healing for the victim and the community and rehabilitating for the offender.

However, professionals who facilitate this process insist that the victim should ONLY be involved if doing so will not further harm her and ONLY if she chooses to be. They further insist that the process be led by a skilled facilitator who has no connection to the community. If the victim participates because she feels pressured to do so by her community, then she may well subject herself to further injury. I have seen many instances in spiritual communities where, when the leader has sexually or psychologically abused someone, the community stands with the leader and against the person who has been harmed. This is what I meant when I said “depending on the circumstances—that is, whether doing so would help or further harm her—I would also encourage her to take steps to hold the violator accountable.”

You seem to suggest that I disagree with you that the victim should examine how she “fell under the spell of an abuser” so that she can prevent it in the future. In fact, this was my stated position. As I said in my post, “This exploration is essential. The victim must come to understand what drew her to such a person, what compelled her to stay in the relationship—and maybe even to invite or encourage it. This is a crucial step towards developing compassion for herself, healing her wounds and gaining the power to protect and take care of herself in the future”—that is, to become, in your words, a “survivor” rather than a “victim.”

As you did not address it, I wonder where you stand regarding what was actually the essential point of my comments—that in pastoral or therapeutic relationships, the priest or therapist must bear full responsibility for his or her behavior. As I said, the relationship itself between members of the clergy or therapists and their parishioners or clients is vital to the healing and growth process. It is a sacred relationship—much like that between a parent and child—and the clergy person or therapist is its guardian. In this relationship, the needs of the client/parishioner come before the needs of the priest, therapist or, indeed, those of the community. Even if a parishioner or client behaves seductively or actually invites sexual contact, the duty of the priest or therapist is to protect her by protecting the sanctity of the relationship. This is the accepted ethical standard in both professions—at least in this society.

You quote the Ken Mcleod translation of the Ganges Mahamudra in order to help Patricia feel clearer about what her experiences were. I am confused by what is suggested in the quote you use. “When you practice with a sexual partner” implies mutual consent to a sexual activity. The quote ends with “When you are free from longing and desire, empty bliss awareness arises.” If this is being taught to advanced practitioners, and if the teachers and practitioners are aware of the natures of the energies being provoked, then I would assume that everyone (teacher or practitioner) is working with the consequences of their “practice with a sexual partner” with the intention of reaching a point where they are “free from longing and desire”. I would guess that longing and desire must be being used as reference points in the practice, and that each “sexual partner” must be dealing with some manifestation of these in the mutual practice?

Whether the participants are advanced or not, my feeling is that there is something powerfully attractive in the opportunity for anyone to participate in practices that encourage sexual partnership. It is not just for the young women and the old lamas; the idea of, and opportunities for, sexual partnership are provocative for all of us, in one way or another.

It is this agreement to view the other as a “sexual partner” that separates these relationships and these practices from many of the other traditions where there is no such relationship that is consented to.

I don’t see how, in any society, this kind of agreement could lead to anything other than wounding, confusion and suffering, regardless of which side of the relationship you are on. I suppose it is exactly these results that somehow point the way to liberation for those who have the capacity to withstand the powerful forces involved; these are very, very rare souls.

We are in complete agreement on all the points. Teacher has full responsibility for protecting what is a very tender relationship. Teacher should not violate through taking advantage financially, by undermining a practitioner’s sense of autonomy and self-respect, or by flirting and offering a pseudo-sexual connection, or engaging in actual sexual activity like petting or intercourse. By pseudo-sexual or pseudo-intimate, I point to the situations when teachers can use their power/authority to hold students in a kind of long term erotic trance–students longing for approval and attention. I have seen cases where a teacher has a group of women who behave as if they are infatuated with the teacher for years. This dynamic is also seen in the academic setting. Very distasteful.

And we agree about how important it is for the one who has survived abuse to be the primary concern in the community healing. Usually, the abused are driven out, and the energy gathers to protect the teacher and restore the status quo.

And we agree that the title Misbehaving Zen Monks title can minimize the criminal and negligent behavior. But I unfortunately titled the blog to point to the long term problem of monks lack of integration in a historical contest–Jinsai’s quote.

Anonymous, thank you for pointing out that combining sexuality and spiritual teaching is historically rare and extremely dangerous. The Dalai Lama has said that to practice this kind of tantric yoga, you need to develop complete non-attachment by drinking your own urine and eating your own feces. Let those who claim they are practicing tantrica start there.

The rest of us will choose to have appropriate sexual partners that are not students or prior students. Anyone who has attended a workshop or paid for teaching time does not become a non-student at the teacher’s say so. This is a point that some teachers use to date sangha women sequentially. They “technically” end the teaching relationship, and then immediately begin the sexual relationship. Once a student takes a teacher, s/he is off limits forever as a sexual partner. Exceptions have occurred rarely, when teacher and student have married. But even this should be fully authorized by the community, and not kept secret.

As I understand the practice, it is part of the Tibetan tantric tradition and usually done in sequestered retreat(3 years, 3 months and 3 days). The use of sexuality is done as a spiritual practice, not as part of a personal relationship. This is what the yab-yum paintings and statues are referencing.

Some Tibetan trained western born teachers in the US are taking this practice and doing it with students at retreat settings. There is not a necessity for physical union because the high energy levels in retreat facilitate the circulation of sexual energy between men and women. In Ken Mcleod’s case, he does this practice in a room with several students, some of whom he has a student teacher relationship with and some with whom he does not. Some would be practicing guru yoga already and be trained to view their teacher as a manifestation of enlightenment who has no other view of the student than to act with compassion for the student’s enlightenment. The student takes the attitude of devotion and this turning toward the other person leads easily to the circulation of sexual energy.

When a teacher takes the results of this practice and uses this to attempt to have a personal sexual relationship with his student, in my opinion, he is acting unethically. Whether the student is expresssing attraction or not, he is obliged to turn them away from any personal relationship, because the intent of the practice is for the awakening of the student, not the gratification of sexual or personal relationship needs.

If the student is not aware of the nature of the practice that was being done by the teacher(such as Patricia Ivan, who was a new student), there is an added necessity to explain the practice to the student and to turn the student away from a personal relatiohship.

If the teacher is not able to maintain these boundaries, then he is not qualified to do the practice. In my opinion, he needs a period of intensive retraining and supervision before he is safe to engage in teaching students.

The board of Ken McLeod’s organization has received grievances from two students and has not provided a suitable process with which to deal with the grievances. They have suggested the use of a mediation process utilizing a retired judge who has no training in Tibetan Buddhism or understanding of the intricacies of the student teacher relationship. The appropriate process requires the involvement of persons with buddhist training, knowledge of the practices Ken McLeod is using, and a deep understanding of student teacher intimacy and power issues. They should also have the capacity to make recommendations about a retraining and supervision process and should be able to provide some restorative healing environment for students who have been harmed by the teacher’s misuse of his position.

This problem is not confined to Unfettered Mind and Ken McLeod. Similar problems were arising at the Dzogchen Centre and lead to the breakdown of that community. I do agree with Tamara’s comments above that students are not in any way responsible for the rehabilitation of their teacher. This is the responsibility of the board of the organization and I strongly encourage the board of Unfettered Mind to act immediately to get the assistance they need to deal with the grievances before them. As far as I understand it, Ken McLeod is planning to teach another retreat and there is a risk that more students may be adversely affected. The board has a responsiblity to the two grievants and to future students.

Good to have this conversation – and to know that there are growing numbers in spiritual communities who are addressing these issues. A long and shameful silence is ending. I think it is healthy when individuals like Steven turn in their zen or other membership cards in protest. That too will help shake things up.

Thank you to both Grace and Stephen. Grace, I’m glad to hear that you and I are in agreement on these very important issues. I too have seen this in academic settings. Distateful and in fact, dangerous there. Much more so, as I have already discussed, with a cleric or therapist. And, Stephen, your points are all very well taken. Bravo.

I truly appreciate Steven’s situation and description of what unfolded in his Zen community. I am appalled at the behavior of many in the Zen community. So far as I know, a very few have acted out, and very many have manipulated. More distasteful to me is when Zen teachers see it and cover it up. I may need to spend the rest of my life hearing these abuses and developing a system to adjudicate them that results in a shunning of offenders and outing of those who cover up for them.
But I have not turned in my Zen membership card because I have not found anything that helps me see reality as much as Zen. I have found no other practice that helps me to see myself–warts and all–and helps me to experience the richness of being human with other humans. I have found a home in Zen and colleagues that I trust. I offer my colleagues my mistakes, and they help me to correct. I am embarrassed at my own stupidity, and yet, every day I am transformed again by zazen and amazed at how it enriches people’s lives.
So if Stephen or Erik have found an alternative to Zen practice, please tell me what it is. And if it includes other people, how will we keep it from making the same mistakes?

Grace,
In response to this comment of yours I am simply inspired to say – “Please don’t ever turn in your Zen membership card!”
We all have a part to play in this and holding the tradition in the midst of a storm is one of the crucial parts.
Keeping to the heart of our practice in the midst of derision, attacks, and lack of support, may be difficult, but cultivating compassion in the midst of that will help to light the way forward. And by being willing to be such a target and do such work, especially when you are in a prominent public role, more people will have the chance to find their own heart, and perhaps be transformed.
As to needing to “developing a system to adjudicate them that results in a shunning of offenders and outing of those who cover up for them.” I simply don’t know. If that is your calling I say go for it. I think there is more benefit in opening the Heart in each moment, to everyone we meet, and in facilitating dialog. I don’t think “shunning” is a psychologically healthy practice for individuals, or for societies! It’s what people on this and other online forums are already all doing to each other, often! I would say – how do we create forms of new social structures that DON”T shun people?
Kindness, and appropriate inclusion (all things can be useful, in certain contexts). Easy for me to say, hard, so so so hard, to do. When it comes down to it, all I can do is keep working on myself, and opening my heart. That seems to change more than anything else can.

I value your contribution and role, even though mine may at times appear contentious or opposite to yours. The body has many parts, and many voices are needed.
Including yours.

I am sympathetic to much of your “rant” and think the idea of sitting in meditation by oneself or with unassuming people outside the confines of a tradition is a good idea.

I respect your questioning and doubtful mind but please forgive me if I find your epistemology underdeveloped. To develop it, I needn’t ask you to accept any religious ideology or abandon reason, but rather to question even further, apply reason to itself and examine it carefully.

There are many helpful starting points for that inquiry. Meditation itself, looking directly into the ephemeral nature of our thoughts, is quite relevant. One might have a “true” (relatively reliable) thought or a “false” (relatively unreliable) thought, but they are both thoughts, they both pass from our experience, and one is left in the end with experience itself. Any attempt to pin “experience” down in thought is just another thought inside our experience. Long periods of sitting meditation tend to bring that insight home in a very personal way.

One possible intellectual starting point is Alfred North Whitehead’s critique of the scientific method as the only way of establishing reliable knowledge. There are other such critiques, but as the co-author (with Bertrand Russell) of Principia Mathematica he can hardly be accused of being a habitually fuzzy thinker. (It is interesting to note that mathematics is one field which is not susceptible to the inductive scientific method at all, though it is used all the time by scientists who claim that method as the only valid way of establishing knowledge.)

Whitehead states: “there are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil.” To sneak a little Buddhism in here, much of his thought dovetails nicely with Nagarjuna, and many see a similarity between his treatment of the “mind-body problem” and various Buddhist philosophies.

Study James Randi a little more closely and you will find that he dismisses some pretty interesting evidence on quite shaky grounds (not just on paranormal topics either) and is emotionally dismissive of anything that threatens his own worldview, not to speak of his wealth. These things might be a little more complex than you think.

Doubt is very good—it’s where it stops that gets us into trouble. Here are some questions and an experiment to ponder on your way:

You seem to dismiss any way of talking about ourselves as energy systems other than the neuromuscular system we learn about in science class. But you go on to write about “imagination” and “psychological phenomena such as suggestion.” Where in the neuromuscular system precisely would you locate these? And how would we study them in purely reductive physical terms?

Now an experiment. You mention you are married. Next time you have any marital difficulty, try seeing your wife as a “neuromuscular system.” Try that for a good long while and see where it leads. Then, if you are not yet divorced, try seeing her as a venerable being; try seeing whatever attracted you to her in particular as a subtle “spiritual power” from which you can draw wisdom and have much to learn. In my experience, this leads to a much better relationship. That doesn’t make it ultimately “true,” but was what attracted you to her just “neuromuscular” attributes? Is that ultimately true either? (If so, I do not advise telling her.)

Finally, I do not hear anybody here as defending or attacking anyone else. I see everybody as trying to work something out from different points of view and help people who have been harmed by misplaced trust. I think you might be one of those people in your own way. It is sad when someone gives up on sexuality because another has misused it. To me it is equally sad when someone gives up on imagination and subtle perception for the same reason.

I am sympathetic to much of your “rant” and think the idea of sitting in meditation by oneself or with unassuming people outside the confines of a tradition is a good idea.

I respect your questioning and doubting mind but please forgive me if I find your epistemology underdeveloped. To develop it, I needn’t ask you to accept any religious ideology or abandon reason, but rather to question even further, apply reason to itself and examine it carefully.

There are many helpful starting points for that inquiry. Meditation itself, looking directly into the ephemeral nature of our thoughts, is quite relevant. One might have a “true” (relatively reliable) thought or a “false” (relatively unreliable) thought, but they are both thoughts, they both pass from our experience, and one is left in the end with experience itself. Any attempt to pin “experience” down in thought is just another thought inside our experience. Long periods of sitting meditation tend to bring that insight home in a very personal way.

One possible intellectual starting point is Alfred North Whitehead’s critique of the scientific method as the only way of establishing reliable knowledge. There are other such critiques, but as the co-author (with Bertrand Russell) of Principia Mathematica he can hardly be accused of being a habitually fuzzy thinker. (It is interesting to note that mathematics is one field which is not susceptible to the inductive scientific method at all, though it is used all the time by scientists who claim that method as the only valid way of establishing knowledge.)

Whitehead states: “there are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil.” To sneak a little Buddhism in here, much of his thought dovetails nicely with Nagarjuna, and many see a similarity between his treatment of the “mind-body problem” and various Buddhist philosophies.

Study James Randi a little more closely and you will find that he dismisses some pretty interesting evidence on quite shaky grounds (not just on paranormal topics either) and is emotionally dismissive of anything that threatens his own worldview, not to speak of his wealth. These things might be a little more complex than you think.

Doubt is very good—it’s where it stops that gets us into trouble. Here are some questions and an experiment to ponder on your way:

You seem to dismiss any way of talking about ourselves as energy systems other than the neuromuscular system we learn about in science class. But you go on to write about “imagination” and “psychological phenomena such as suggestion.” Where in the neuromuscular system precisely would you locate these? And how would we study them in purely reductive physical terms?

Now an experiment. You mention you are married. Next time you have any marital difficulty, try seeing your wife as a “neuromuscular system.” Try that for a good long while and see where it leads. Then, if you are not yet divorced, try seeing her as a venerable being; try seeing whatever attracted you to her in particular as a subtle “spiritual power” from which you can draw wisdom and have much to learn. In my experience, this leads to a much better relationship. That doesn’t make it ultimately “true,” but was what attracted you to her just “neuromuscular” attributes? Is that ultimately true either? (If so, I do not advise telling her.)

Finally, I do not hear anybody here as defending or attacking anyone else. I see everybody as trying to work something out from different points of view and help people who have been harmed by misplaced trust. I think you might be one of those people in your own way. It is sad when someone gives up on sexuality because another has misused it. To me it is equally sad when someone gives up on imagination and subtle perception for the same reason.

Grace, you are a gem. Adam is a gem. In fact everyone here is a gem. I only don’t donate money because I am indigent. Happy, but indigent. When I had money I wasn’t happy. Go figure. So I’ll donate a poem by Basho:

Is it really accurate to say of Zen teachers that only “a very few have acted out,” especially if we look at the well-known Japanese teachers who came in the Fifties and Sixties and founded major centers? What the statistics might be on Western Zen teachers, I don’t know. Truly disturbing is the decades-long avoidance and denial in Buddhist communities, despite terrible harm done to seekers. The cause of that is what I tried to examine in my “Lineage” articles.

You ask if I have found an alternative to Zen practice. I never sought one. Isn’t “Zen” bigger than the Chinese or Japanese organizations and their American counterparts? I still practice the Zen sitting taught me by Suzuki starting in about 1964 and by Katagiri from Suzuki’s death in 1971 until about 1982. And there has never been a time in those almost fifty years when regular meditation on a round cushion has not been my practice—accompanied by intellectual inquiry into The Great Mystery That Is (as Rumi calls it somewhere) by reading in all faith traditions.

But in about 1982 I realized that unless I became an official Buddhist and was ordained, and then a priest, and ultimately a dharma heir (actions that would have isolated me from my family, friends, and community), Katagiri had no place for me other than as one of those who helped raise funds and supported the “professional” meditators.

I drifted away at that point, which was also the time of my second child’s birth (there was no real support of families at our Zen Center – most Zen couples divorced and I saw children rather sadly neglected by “serious” practitioners).
My book Nothing on My Mind tells the story.

I tend to agree with Jon Kabat-Zinn that to name oneself a “Buddhist” is already to miss the point of unity, of oneness. Perhaps it’s enough to belong to a subdivision of all living things called the human race.

For a decade now I’ve given my teaching primarily to students at the University of Minnesota (through the Center for Spirituality and Healing), where I’ve developed undergraduate and graduate credit offerings in meditation and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, the latter based on Kabat-Zinn’s work. Here students can learn Zen sitting – whether they are Muslim, Christian, Jew, atheist, or whatever. The separation that tends to happen when we label ourselves is absent. (For example, I’ve taught meditation to Muslim students who would never set foot in a Buddhist temple.)
I might call myself a Zen teacher without portfolio.

Thanks Erik, John and Anon,
I too would like to find a way to include all beings in my Zen practice, and appreciate that meditation is useful in all forms. I have also studied Kabat-Zinn’s work and other methods. I sometimes teach Zen meditation in the park with other faith leaders for people who won’t affiliate with any religion. I have met rigid and harmful religious figures in all traditions, and I have met others who are inspired by the highest ethical requirements. I can’t really calculate the proportion of harmful to ethically minded teachers. However, I have seen both types in all traditions–even in MBSR. I tend to believe they are just as many unlabeled scoundrels “claiming unity” as those who have affiliations. But I haven’t done careful research.
Glad we agree that Zen meditation is helpful. I trust Zen with portfolio and without portfolio. It’s the rascals/criminals in both situations that need a remedy and our good sense when we see them. We should use good sense in all of our relationships; there is no substitute for being aware and being careful with power.

To Grace: I haven’t nearly as much experience teaching as you or Erik, but I already find myself drifting away from the labels Zen or Buddhism at our dojo. We still do all the classic Zen practices, but most have lost their meaning and importance to me. Like Brad Warner, I practice zazen the same way I brush my teeth. All the rest is ideology that, at best, is benign and can be dropped.

Thanks Steven, but you seem a little melodramatic about serfs and kings. No one says you shouldn’t question the power structure; most in this discussion are doing so. Hope your lack of affiliation works for you and your group. It is an interesting approach, and I hope to hear how it helps to clarify the great matter and meet people’s suffering. Everything we do in our sangha is designed to help you watch your mind and your tendencies. If you do that wearing robes and chanting–good. If you do it in your blue jeans–good.
The interesting question about non-affiliation is “Who is watching for tendencies in your groups?” I would guess that informal teachers and students make mistakes. So even in this environment everyone needs to be aware and use good sense.

Hello. I’ve been following this discussion and just wanted to add another female voice from someone who is giving up zen. Firstly, I feel for those women who were sexually manipulated. I was not in that position. Instead, I felt the emotional manipulation that I was “less than”; that I needed to be a certain way, or strive for a certain idea, or participate in certain activity or pass a koan, while at the same , being told to be “myself” and “look deeply.” Happiness and contentment meant that you weren’t looking deeply enough at yourself. And then I would spend time working my day job and negotiating my personal relationships with honesty and compassion trying to use the zen teachings to inform my life. I would hold the hand of a patient with Lou Gehrig’s disease, and try to objectively help them eat and communicate.
Then… I would go back into the zen community, being subtly (and not so subtly) told that the “professional meditators” (Thank you, Erik. I love that term!) were the ones I should look up to and strive to learn from. Meanwhile, half of them were clueless, angry, or selfish. The other half, were trying to do the right thing (as I think Grace thinks she is trying to do.)
However, this whole paradigm is not working. Clearly we are seeing some of that bad half are doing very bad things, the rest of the bad half are helping to cover it up, because it is in the name of the “zen master”, a title they’ve hard earned. Meanwhile the good half wants to preserve their title, too, so they are playing “soft” ball.
Grace writes:
“It’s the rascals/criminals in both situations that need a remedy and our good sense when we see them. We should use good sense in all of our relationships; there is no substitute for being aware and being careful with power.”
Grace, I’m sorry to call you out, but these offenders are not “rascals”. They are bad people. Yes, we should use good sense, but I really don’t feel this thread has adequately acknowledged the pain and suffering of the victims.
On behalf of the victims, somebody needs to step up to the plate and play some “hard” ball. Strip these offenders of their title, it’s fictitious and empty in the first place.
And victims need to know their are a lot of us out here, who feel manipulated to a lesser or greater extent, who blame ourselves for being weak or naive, or have had other community members tells us everything is fine and normal (when it clearly isn’t), or feel shame for being duped (that’s where I fall sometimes).
Victims: please know you have done nothing wrong. If you are a person reading this, and feel like you have been hurt by a zen teacher or community, please know you are not alone, you are perfect just the way you are, you have done nothing “wrong” . You are just human. You can heal any pain or trauma you are experiencing. There are numerous resources, and many caring professionals available to help. But healing will not be found within the Zen community; there’s too much self-preservation at stake. Remember: Zen is NOT special, or outside the parameters of human behavior.

I myself have just completed 5 years of what I refer to as “unravelling the zen propaganda” I was fed for 20 years in zen temples and systems. The same old Catholic/Puritanical guilt trips and power plays embodied in rigid systems that think they have all the answers and are intent on forcing everyone to conform to those ideas – be it by baiting or emotional and subtle blackmail. I know, it’s only human. All religions do it. All societies do it. I describe it as if it’s overt. It’s not, it’s subtle – very subtle. Like walking in the fog..

I first saw it when I started to think of myself as superior as I navigated my way up through the heirarchies of zen. When I saw prominent male and female zen Abbots/Abbesses fighting for attention at important public events, like pigs in a yard, I knew there was a real problem.That’s not to say it’s all that way. Right there, there are also jewels of awakening, in the midst of that.

In some ways I think this “debate” on sexuality in practice is also an opportunity to “see” those hidden facets – and right now it seems to me that the masculinized feminine in zen is attacking the masculine. That’s ok as a stage – the religious patriarchy created this mess, in some ways they deserve to be attacked. Women in zen are trying to start to take power and clean it up – but the Divine Feminine will have to wait a few decades, because the current feminine in zen was trained by the patriarchy…and is still so masculinized.

The whole public discussion seems to be about finding fault and objectifying. It’s a very masculine way to have a discussion. The attempts to CONTROL things, is also so very masculinized. We live in a masculinized society, based on war, and benefiting at the cost of destroying the lives of others with whom we disagree – so it’s hardly surprising that zen debates tend to be somewhat that way, too.

Hello Heidi
I think rascal/criminal is more definitive than bad. Rascal=mean, unprincipled, dishonest person (Merriam Webster Dictionary) and criminal says that they have committed a crime. I can see that you have met up with a number of this type, and I am glad you’ve come out with a sense that you can make it as yourself and that you have some advice to give others. But I would add something Suzuki Roshi said to the advice you give. “Everyone is perfect and we can all use a little improvement. I hope we all understand the nature of that statement and the work that it entails. As the Buddha said: Be a lamp unto yourself.”

Grace, on your provocative question regarding who is looking for tendencies in groups, I value and honor what the question implies. As a non-affiliated buddhist, who views the seven billion people on this planet as my sangha (and many zillions of ants), I think we should also ask: who is looking for tendencies within ourselves? This is by no means a condemnation of those who affiliate, nor their masters. Without them I would be totally lost. But I take to heart the sutra that says, go beyond, go altogether beyond.

Dear Steven and all victims of Zen teacher abuse: the discussion forum obcconnect is a good place to share experiences. The community of ex-OBC members has generated a wealth of knowledge and experience on the subject.

JW,you certainly answered the question about who is watching our tendencies, whether in large structured groups or small unstructured groups. We are responsible for watching and noticing, and yet we cannot help but have blind spots. We need to create an atmosphere for healthy dialogue in all of our relationships, being clear about boundaries, and being clear about the need for discussion even when there is conflict.

Steven, actually, I believe I can speak from whatever side I wish to. Like you, I believe in the freedom of speech. If you think that having formal teacher status at this particular moment exempts me from being the victim of abuse, please think again. As a human being, I suffer from and with those who are harmed. And I suffer attacks of bullies and know-it-alls as well as attacks from students, teachers and others. I also take the time to listen to others suffering; I do not put myself above it. From the perspective of helping those who have suffered to survive and thrive, I actually have experience on both sides. So I will continue to discuss my experience and how to survive. I am also glad that Christopher is offering resources for the victims and survivors of Zen teacher abuse.

Steven remember too the teaching of a candle unto a candle, that it costs us nothing to share the light…just because we are a lamp unto ourselves doesn’t mean we cannot also pass the flame. Skilled teachers are lighting up the world. Should we not honor them too?

By the way Steven I empathize with your situation. I’m not a teacher but the other day in meditation I recalled a very sorrowful experience I had as a child, maybe seven or eight. My parents were recently divorced and I was in a daycare setting. She was a kind lady, but on this day she punished me for something I really wasn’t doing. What was going on was that I was thoroughly heartbroken about my parent’s divorce, and that may have translated into some unruly behavior, but not really right then. I think she meant well, by forcing me to sit in a chair, but it really made me feel desolate, like I was being punished for nothing and that no one understood my pain. I’ve thought about that on and off for a long time, but it’s not a top-of-mind experience anymore. Then it came up in meditation quite unexpectedly and the sorrow washed over me again. Amazing how that can happen. Anyway what I did was imagine in my mind, going back to that living room chair and holding that brokenhearted little boy the same way I hold my son when he is crying. I mean really holding, not just thinking about it, but going back to that place and giving the child that I was all the love I was missing and so desperately needed at that moment. It’s not zen, really. But maybe if you can face those moments in that way it might help you. I sincerely hope it does. You seem like a wonderful person.

JW, I was truly touched by your story. Thank you so much for sharing that. I had a very similar experience in the zendo one night. I was suddenly sitting next to my parents as young people, and I felt them, experienced them as flawed, wonderful human beings who made mistakes. And I felt such compassion and forgiveness. To me, like your experience, that IS zen… Sitting, being aware and open to yourself and yourSelf, working toward healing and letting go (non-attachment.) We both didn’t stop what we felt, or doubted it and ran to a teacher, we responded from the heart.
I do agree with you that teachers can be useful (I might differ from my hubbie there.) But I also feel the current zen paradigm is too teacher dependent, instead of having a teacher as a guide, or resource, or as a candle.

There is a philosophy of the nature of the universe proposed by David Bohm, a now deceased astrophysicist, described as implicate order. In this understanding of the nature of everything, past present and future coexist. There are hidden “enfolded” mechanisms which create the nature of reality as we experience it. Objects, even subatomic particles, are secondary to this higher order of folding and unfolding of time and space in a seamless whole. The parallels to the Buddha’s teachings on reality are quite profound.

He spoke of the “unfoldment” of the universe, including coordinates of space and time, as like paper when you fold it and cut a hole, then unfold it and see the holes are all over. This also happens in a hologram, so every bit of the hologram has the entire image. But the difference is a hologram is static, and the universe is fluid. Anyway his view on time was not linear, but folded. My understanding of it is that when something happens it kind of happens all over the universe. Each present moment has folded within all past moments, with recent events being more strongly enfolded. The consciousness relates these different times wholly, so that the past still “is” for us as much as the present “is”. It is still implicate within our present moment, like a hologram in a way, and through memory/consciousness we can relate our present moment to the past. So when we talk about being fully present in zazen, our being in the now means literally being present with the past too. Perhaps our mind is capable of unfolding it. Or maybe we just experience it unfolding through thought and memory and meditation.

Forgive me if that seems too wild a notion for rational discourse. I steer clear of having fixed opinions about the universe, much less claim to understand it. It might be easier just to think of it as healing. I won’t post a link because I think Adam prefers we don’t but you can google out an interesting article in Omni magazine where Bohm explained his ideas. Bless you both and all!

All,
Indeed a wonder to behold. Like everything else “teacher” has no fixed self. Some suck, some are helpful, some are helpful sometimes and suck at other times. I am glad we are not getting too stuck on that problem. As long as teacher is seen as candle or guide, I hope you can agree to make use of the resource when it doesn’t pretend to have a mythic and fixed self. When the teacher’s claims are too far-fetched, I hope you will notice and run like hell.

I am unaware of the details of the many recent cases about abuse of power but could the American Zen community look at traditional monastic practice and take something from this ? I am sure there is abuse of power that manifests istelf in sexual relationships in these communities but less so perhaps. I have chosen to practice in a theravada community because there is no tolerance for this with monks. Any sexual activity and they are out, no exceptions. The Buddha intended his teachings to be spread and carried by groups of celibate, renunciate individuals many of whom lived in large communities to teach and maintain the teachings.

Yes, required celibacy is one solution. But not all people are equipped for celibacy–we have noticed. Also, in Theravada, there are no official nuns, a different problem. Historically, I do believe there have been problems in that tradition with young monks as objects, also in Western orders. When men and women, priest and nun practice together there will be challenges, and teachers and sangha need to be accountable.

Yes, because that worked so well with monks and clergy in the Catholic Church. Why would anyone think that an answer to the problem of secretive, inappropriate sexual expression would be the creation of an even more repressed culture and force things further underground? Ridiculous.

Um hum, sure, like military intelligence and other complete contradictions in terms.

At a minimum, an ordinary person with no ‘awesome power’ can be cognizant of the sensations in their own body and of the affective feelings and thoughts that are occurring and can exercise self restraint when these sensations, feelings and thoughts are inappropriate. At a minimum, an ordinary person with no ‘spiritual power’ (whatever that is) is capable of excusing themselves, removing themselves and recusing themselves from circumstances which would compromise their ethical and moral responsibilities to other people and to themselves. At a minimum, anyone who has made genuine advances in understanding the four noble truths and in skillfully applying these truths will be able to exercise appropriate self restraint at all times to the arising of lust, greed and ill will. If that behavior is demonstrably otherwise in any of those who claim to have made advances on the eightfold noble path then this is evidence that they are liars and frauds, are not worthy of support and do not merit the respect of ordinary people many of whom can and do manage to control themselves. The awesome spiritual power possessed by those who have less self restraint than ordinary people is utter hogwash, awesome degrees of self delusion is what it is.

I loved the analogy of “labeling” on zen teachers. We could also label the behaviors of some of those who claim abuse, “Warning – victim mentality – corrosive!” I also think that metaphor is useful in a more general sense. For example, Morphine is addictive. Many many medicines are addictive or have side effects. Does that mean they are incorrigible or not useful? No. It means, Use with care. Use as is helpful. Is life perfect? Do Doctors, Politicians, and people make mistakes that hurt others? How can we BAN them all, and make life so that nobody gets hurt, ever?

I appreciated the thoughtful and in depth approach of this article for it explores in one of the more thorough ways I have yet seen, some of the aspects of the teacher student relationship. To me the discussion is not yet wide enough.

I want to see a discussion, of when is it ok to have sex with a teacher? How much power difference is unsafe, for whom , under what contexts? What are the contexts and parameters under which such an exploration can be expected to have a positive outcome? I have three female friends who all had “taboo” sexual relations with either a zen teacher, professor, or other “Authority” figure, when they were younger. They are all creative, powerful, innovative women. Their experiences fed them, and helped them grow. Clearly there are times when it can be helpful to engage in such activity. Lets talk about that. When we understand that, we will also understand that this discussion is much less about sex than it is about unconsciousness, abuse, and victimization – sex is an obviously visible form. There are many more subtle forms of abuse. Saying that sex with an authority figure is always wrong is a violent and abusive act against all those people for whom that is not true! Morphine may be addictive. For some people, Morphine may be just what they need, for a short time. Don’t ban Morphine just because most people get addicted to it!!!

I love that we are finally having these discussions in zen. They are about 20 years overdue.

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About Myoan Grace Schireson

Abbess Myoan Grace Schireson was given Dharma transmission in the Suzuki Roshi lineage by Sojun Mel Weitsman, Abbot of Berkeley Zen Center. She studied Rinzai Zen in Japan with Keido Fukushima Roshi, the late Abbot of Tofukuji Monastery in Kyoto, Japan who asked her to teach the koans she had studied with him during her training there. Grace is the head teacher of the Central Valley Zen Foundation and has founded and leads three Zen groups and a Zen retreat center in California. Grace is also a clinical psychologist who has specialized in women and families. She has been married for forty-five years and has two grown sons and four grandchildren.

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